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The Vanishing Craft of the Typewriter Repairman

Paul Schweitzer runs the Gramercy Typewriter Co., a Manhattan business started by his father in the 1930s.
Margot Adler, NPR
Paul Schweitzer runs the Gramercy Typewriter Co., a Manhattan business started by his father in the 1930s.

Some people still write with fountain pens. Some still love their old manual and electric typewriters. But typewriter repairmen are a vanishing breed. Up on the eighth floor of the Flatiron Building in Manhattan, Paul Schweitzer has been fixing and cleaning typewriters for 40 years.

Schweitzer's father began the business during the Depression. Today, manual and electronic typewriters of all shapes, colors and sizes fill Schweitzer's tiny workshop. He spends most of the day making house calls around the city, carrying a tool bag that doesn't look so different from the old doctor's bag.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Margot Adler died on July 28, 2014 at her home in New York City. She was 68 and had been battling cancer. Listen to NPR Correspondent David Folkenflik's retrospective on her life and career

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SOMOS CONNECTICUT es una iniciativa de Connecticut Public, la emisora local de NPR y PBS del estado, que busca elevar nuestras historias latinas y expandir programación que alza y informa nuestras comunidades latinas locales. Visita CTPublic.org/latino para más reportajes y recursos. Para noticias, suscríbase a nuestro boletín informativo en ctpublic.org/newsletters.

The independent journalism and non-commercial programming you rely on every day is in danger.

If you’re reading this, you believe in trusted journalism and in learning without paywalls. You value access to educational content kids love and enriching cultural programming.

Now all of that is at risk.

Federal funding for public media is under threat and if it goes, the impact to our communities will be devastating.

Together, we can defend it. It’s time to protect what matters.

Your voice has protected public media before. Now, it’s needed again. Learn how you can protect the news and programming you depend on.